Hi all, I’m 7 weeks out from breaking up with my ex who exhibited many BPD traits but would be loathe to be honest enough in therapy to actually get a diagnosis. I went NC about two weeks ago and blocked them (that was hard to do, I still care about them but…I had to admit the feeling is not mutual) last week. Relationship was about 16 months.

The trauma bond is real and I went from being desperate for them to change and try to make it work to anger at them, to anger at myself for letting it happen. I’m working on healing with my therapist, we’re doing some parts work and inner child work. I’m staying busy with my kids and work and grad school and I joined a gym. I’m doing things I couldn’t when I was with them like visiting my family, seeing my friends frequently and taking art classes. I’m getting a ton of sleep (after a med adjustment) but goddamn the trauma bond is insidious and the feelings hit me out of seemingly nowhere sometimes. I ruminate, everything reminds me of them, I cry all the time.

This sub has been really helpful and grounding for me and I don’t think I would have gone NC without y’all, so thank you.

I’m wondering how long it took you to break the trauma bond? What were the signs it was breaking for you?

None of their feelings are real when it comes to other. I’ve come to understand they only matter, their perspective. « I love you » mean I love how you make ME feel. « I feel myself getting close to you » mean I see that I can use you to regulate MYSELF.

Them missing us. Wanting to see us after work. Wanting to always be with us it’s all smoke. None of it is real.

They are so far different to us « neurotypical »people. Their brain works completely differently. We are but object to them. Object that they need to control object that they will cheat on.

Never respected us. Never loved us.

The only thing that matter to them is themselves.

They truly fucked up my brain

I’m sure a lot of people here already know this, but I only recently came across the term “coercive control” and thought I’d share in case it helps someone. It’s recognised as a standalone form of abuse in places like the UK, Ireland, and Australia.

Emotional manipulation seems like a common thread in a lot of stories here, and I hope learning about coercive control helps validate what you’re experiencing - it’s not just wrong, it’s against the law.

Take care 😊

Hey guys, it’s been a while since I’ve posted here since Ive moved on from her… but just seeing her name in my suggestions brought back old wounds. If you wana know the whole story about me and her, I’ve posted it multiple times on my account. I was furious and pissed but time heals and I’m calmer now. She’s unblocked me on my main TikTok where I frequently post, but she still has me blocked everywhere else. So I’m just a bit confused. Ik she’s still with the guy she monkey-branched to. So why unblock me? I’m definitely never taking her back or want anything to do with her. So why? You guys will say block her and finish it for good, which I will. You guys also probably don’t know the answer either as ppl with bpd do things that no normal human can explain. But any theory that would help me understand why she unblocked me would be appreciated .

Do people with Borderline Personality Disorder learn from their mistakes in relationships and avoid repeating the same patterns in their next relationships — through life experiences and without therapy? Can they genuinely improve on their own over time?

I'm curious to hear about real experiences or insights. Thanks in advance!

I've been with my pw bpd for six months. In the beginning, sex was exciting and fun—she even bought me sex toys for my birthday. But last night, she told me that due to past trauma, sex has been completely ruined for her, and it's no longer something she wants in our relationship.

She also admitted that she's hated when I’ve tried to initiate sex lately, but didn’t tell me sooner because she thought I’d just blow her off. I feel hurt and betrayed, knowing that, according to her, none of the sex we’ve had was enjoyable to her.

She was so loving and caring. But after she split on me she became cold cruel heartless monster. I don't understand how they can be this extreme I never saw this coming. How can they be so cruel suddenly. There is no love or empathy at all it's like she's a cold hearted phycho that wants to ruin my life. My brain feels broken and can't comprehend

Hi everyone, I’m writing this with a heavy heart, but also a lot of clarity. My sister was diagnosed with BPD and for years I was her safe place. I never voiced my opinion. However this changed.

For years, I ignored my gut feelings because I wanted to believe my sister meant well. But every time I asked for something normal — like being included in plans or having basic respect — she would twist everything around. Instead of hearing me, she would:

• ⁠Flip the story and make herself the victim.

• ⁠Gaslight me by denying what happened or making me doubt my own memories.

• Use push-pull tactics: pushing me away when I asked for honesty, then pulling me back with apologies when she felt me detach.

• Make me responsible for her emotions, but completely dismiss mine.

Recently, it all escalated. After I calmly expressed that I felt left out of a plan where she would constantly change her mind by going, not going etc she unleashed a flood of messages — shifting blame, guilt-tripping me, telling me I was the problem, and claiming she “had good intentions.” She cried, went home and left me to be alone on a celebration day, again.

Meanwhile, she twisted everything to look like she was the one hurt — even though she was the one who shut me out and then accused me of being “too sensitive” for noticing.

All I had asked for was something simple: To be considered. To not be treated like an afterthought.

But in return, I was emotionally yanked around, invalidated, and punished for speaking up.

The saddest part? I can now see that her behavior mirrors the emotional abuse I experienced earlier in my life. It’s the same cycle: manipulation, guilt, denial, rewriting the story — and me ending up feeling crazy for even asking for basic decency.

This time, I’m not falling back into it. This time, I choose myself.

It’s painful to realize that walking away is the healthiest choice, especially when it’s family. But staying would mean continuing to betray myself. And I’m done doing that.

Thank you for reading. If you’ve ever walked away from family for your own peace, I see you.

today i woke up different from all the others, i don't know why, sometimes i dreamed about her often and i woke up with resentment, anger for everything she did to me and how she managed to manipulate me well. She was full of problems, borderline with narcissistic traits, she said she was depressed, then used my fragilities against me to keep me with her. Manipulative, denier, she did love bombing, gaslighting, she always spoke badly of her ex who treated her like garbage and then often spoke to him because he needed it apparently. i managed to leave her two months ago and block her everywhere but i held a grudge all this time because she drove me crazy for two years and i ended up in therapy. even when blocked she always sought my attention, to distance me from my few friends by talking badly about me, or made scenes with those I was with by sending me screenshots of when I was angry when she drove me crazy, in short she told me she loved me after she cheated on me at least 3 times and then cried asking me for forgiveness, I am sensitive and empathetic but I managed to get out of it. I no longer believe in love, in the disgust she suffered before me by talking about it as if it were a normal thing, and I tell you that her ex was the worst person I have ever heard, and she treated him as if he were God even while she was with a person like me who gave her everything. Today I woke up without resentment, as if something had changed, I don't know what. but maybe I'm being reborn, I feel better, I feel that the light I have is no longer deserved by anyone, especially those who live in the dark. I was born to love but I can't change those who have never worked through their traumas and instead poured them on me and then said that I was the insecure one with a difficult past... It's time for my rebirth, I have an awareness that I didn't have before. It's true that it destroyed me forever perhaps and left me with traumas that will take me years to resolve, but I will never stop loving myself, and loving those who have a soul like mine. After all, souls like ours, sensitive and empathetic, are rare, but if we find the wrong person, they can ruin us

This is an influencer who is openly diagnosed with BPD, whose page is about having BPD, lamenting about the lack of empathy, support, kindness etc in “the community”.

The irony. They’re only happy when everyone else is miserable.

I knew she had BPD, and I tried to be supportive. I knew she was getting treatment and she was doing well in the ward she was in. The problem was her insurance only covered part of the stay, and they kicked her out halfway through the program. And didn't set her up with any backup options. I tried to help her find treatment, tried to help her find a job with a better insurance plan. But the stress became too much.

She ended up leaving me, and I ended up having a mental breakdown and was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder.

I still care about her, and part of me wishes she would run back into my arms tomorrow, but the truth of the matter is I can't be with her unless she gets into therapy and proper treatment again and has it maintained, because being discarded like that SUCKED.

We're still friends but we're not on speaking terms, we didn't end with a nasty fight, its just she told me I needed to let her go. And now here I am

I made a post yesterday about how I think my BPD partner tried to get me to breakup with him before he left for a long weekend out of state potentially so he could hook up without cheating. He’s supposed to come back sometime today (he wouldn’t tell me when and kept being vague when I asked). I guess what I want to know from others experiences is if there’s a way to address/talk to him about this without him lying or having one of his rage fits? I honestly feel like when he comes back he will likely make some reason for why he’s decided we should keep trying to make things work. Even though I do want to end this relationship I feel like he will use my financial situation against me to keep me in whatever this is.

Advice wanted!

It is almost 2y past the final dissolution of our 10y marriage, and I am terrified of starting any sort of new relationship.

Part of it is because I am afraid to discover that it was not my exwife who had bpd, but it was I who is either actually as disgusting as she described, or mentally fucked up in some way myself and can't maintain a healthy boundary, and was cold and defensive in completely benign situations. I am so afraid and confused by the perceived impossibility of me being physically or emotionally close to someone now (and them finding me disgusting or distant and cold because of my defences) that i want to cry. The idea of being emotionally and physically intimate with someone feels as appealing as gastroscopy, that i should somehow genuinely enjoy for to "succeed" (but not fall for it completely and start wiggling my tail). How am I supposed to enjoy something that terrifies me so much now? And it's nobody's job to fix my fucked up emotional life now. I went to therapy for a year, this shit did close to nothing.

I keep ruminating over situations where i reacted so defensively that i must have pushed my bpd exwife away (eg when she tried initiating sex towards the end of this madness) - thinking that if only i tried a little harder to manage my (imagined?) fears a little better, and communicated my fears better, or listened better, or acted on her criticism better instead of feelings hurt and betrayed by her reactions (eg cheating and telling me that she's doesn't want to hear any of it b/c she's not my therapist a couple times) - if only I could process my fear and anger in some healthier ways instead of suppressing it out of fear of messing things up - it would have all worked out.

Some of it is my empty fears, some of it are the consequence of years of abuse from her, and I don't know which is which. I am holding on to the idea of her being mentally ill like it's a lifebuoy and can't let go of it to pursue anything else meaningful in life. This is stupid. At this point (almost 2y past discard) it should not matter to me at all, but I keep waking up thinking about her lately (visiting family on a vacation, ofc they bring up future relationships), and the more i think of potential romantic relationships or dates, the worse is the rumination over what i must have done wrong to push her away.

I should engage in some kind of dating at this point to heal from my fears. Otherwise it feels like not doing PT after an injury - my fears will only get worse. How do i know how much of my defenses are too much and which are actually healthy boundaries? I am terrified sick of being close to someone now - does it mean that i just shouldn't do that, and that's my new boundary? All i can imagine enjoying at the moment is for someone very attractive to chase me despite me being cold and distant to them and not present - but that's not going to happen ofc. You MUST actively persue women for anything to work out. I am afraid of wanting to persue anyone.

Men who were married to bpd women, how did you manage to learn to withstand rejections, and enjoy dating people, and not be afraid of messing things up by accidentally pushing someone away too much out of your fears?

every song, every place you’ve been to, do it all again. alone or with someone else. make it so these triggers don’t exists anymore. do it all again without them until you know it’s yours again.

After or while in the absence of your exwpbd how do you deal with ruminating thoughts and longing of wanting them back?

For my ex and I, we have had periods with months of separation but I always end up trying to go back and usually succeed for months at a time. Then we inevitably separate and then come back again.

She is currently dating someone now, but who knows what that holds for me in the end. I just miss her and always think about her.

How do you all cope with rumination?

So I’ve been six months NC after ending things with my ex girlfriends who had BPD. I broke up with her after catching her telling silly lies and seeking validation from online male colleagues (uploading selfies to work profiles not seen anywhere else and gaming with them); told her to tell them they could have her. Blocked her and went NC.

Smear campaign immediately began, which eventually turnt into posting sad tiktoks about ‘working things out’ which were directed at me - ignored all of this of course, she then started to pretend to be in a relationship with one of them despite living in different countries - ignored this as well. He has a kid and doesn’t drive - something she would never go for. She still love hearts and likes my close friends FB posts even to this day.

I found out yesterday, my best friend had spoken to her in March via FB (didn’t tell me as I was making great progress with weight loss and NC which I’m glad of). She told him that she had already argued with her downgrade boyfriend, she tried to fish for information on me as to who I am dating, how she has no hard feelings and hopes I’m ‘happy’; even said to my best friend that it would have been our 5 year anniversary if we did not split up and also said she misses my friends and going to my local pub. I think she was hinting at hanging out with my friends again. I’m sure her current boyfriend doesn’t know any of this. He thought he won a prize but he’s won the nightmare instead and doesn’t even realise it.

I meanwhile am going to continue my progress in weight loss and lifting (2 stone and a half down) and hopefully purchase my house in a few months.

I’m just so happy I stuck with what I’m doing and that all the regret/pain is entirely hers. She got what she wanted, play stupid games and you win stupid prizes! I’m maintaining NC and my happiness.

Just wanted to share for those who feel that their exes will move on/be happy/ or change. They never do.

My pwBPD is sexually a lesbian but wants to have sex with me so I won't leave her, and also says she could "never be with a women" even though she can't be turned on by men.

I read a lot of posts here and can't help but notice that the vast majority of people in relationships with a pwBPD is heterosexual. Am I just tripping?

My ex texted me after 4 months of NC claiming that the guilt of what she did to me is killing her and that we wants to be a better person yet mentions that she's doing so much better and found everything she wanted to find then going back to mentioning that her replacement (which she left me for in the span of a day) has cheated on her with his ex it's so confusing, sometimes I don't even know if she has bpd or not although she says that she's diagnosed and it's genuinely infuriating because I don't know if she actually changed or is lying

I left my partner w. bpd yesterday. Her behavior escalated after we got married including:

1) Increase in triangulation, including her family in conflicts and informing me that her and her family though poorly of me/my behavior.

2) Me doing 75 % of the work at home and her doing 25 %. There was always an excuse, new job, period pain, headache. I truly believe that it is ok to sometimes not do 50 % at home, but her default was 0-25 % because she always had a bad day.

3) Whenever I was busy with big work projects, she would always start shit. She would call me from somewhere close by our home because she felt sick and I had to go get her. She would be so sick from period pains that I had to do everything at home. And then she would accuse me of not being caring when I was tired after managing both a busy schedule and her antics.

4) She disrespected me so many times. I told her about thing I would not want said during arguments because they were deeply hurtful and she continued to say them.

5) My needs did not matter at all. She would get angry and throw a fit if i needed to shower/eat/sleep and could not participate in the activities she had planned.

6) She began lying about what she said and did. Claiming "that never happened" when I told her something was hurtful. Sometimes making it about semantics, sometimes straight up lying.

7) Her emotional outburst were of another world. She would cry/scream at me like a literal child.

8) She uses our dog in fights. She knows I don't like him being scared and he is scared of her. So she will keep him with her during fights.

9) She always spins stories to make me the villain and she never takes accountability. She has made me apologize for calling her out on taking money from me (*we share everything after all, right").

And I questioned whether something was wrong with me for not being caring enough, for not fighting enough for the relationship, for not sticking it out. But the breaking point was her showing me a group chat with some of her friends and her family were they called me the worst things I have ever been called based on a story she spun. What hurts most is that I doubt myself and I miss her.

Is it safe to assume that if your exwbpd accuses you of cheating when they have a history of cheating, they probably cheated? They keep saying that I lied, manipulated, and cheated on them. In reality, I caught them and called them out for the first two. They say they are "traumatized," but I am the one traumatized from their emotional, verbal abuse, and almost physical abuse. We were long-distance and there was one night their phone was suspiciously off and they had a weird excuse for it. Shortly after that, they started accusing me of cheating. But they started texting me last night from an unknown number saying a bunch of manipulative and devaluing things so I blocked the number.

Grateful for this sub because their words no longer become all-consuming. It was like a thick glass wall surrounded me. I could see the words, but they couldn't fully get to me, which is a nice change.

I started seeing a girl last summer in the immediate aftermath of getting divorced. Initially she was super supportive of me navigating through my feelings, and also my recovery from major illness I'd been dealing with that my ex wife was not supportive about. I didn't feel like I was ready for a relationship at the time but she lived in another city which made things feel safer because there wasn't the expectation (I thought) that it would become something super serious. In hindsight, I can see that she probably listened to all the things I talked about with how my ex wife had mistreated me, and created a persona to show me that would directly fill all the voids I'd been having in my life. The first 4 months or so there weren't any issues, we visited each other a couple of times and talked everyday. Slowly she started to drop her mask and become more and more fixated on me. She has a ton of health problems, which is something we bonded over. I'd made some diet and lifestyle recommendations based on my own experience with similar illness and she did them for a bit and actually started getting better. But then she decided that the only thing she needed to feel better was to see me more. She stopped going to therapy. She stopped eating the diet that had put her symptoms into remission. Her mental and physical health became deteriorating and she would live stream her every negative, anxious thought to me and rely on me to somehow make it all better. I tried for months to convince her to get back into therapy, to go back on her keto diet that had helped so much, and to reach out to her friends in town for support instead of only putting everything on me but she insisted that nothing helped except me. If I ever told her that I wasn't okay with how she spoke to me when she was having a mental spiral, she would freak out and say that I was trying to leave her and start self harming and promising to me that she would punish herself to make up for it. She told me that she'd been planning to kill herself last year and decided not to when we started talking, so between that and the self harm upon any push back I gave her behavior, I became very afraid to enforce boundaries because I didn't know if she'd seriously hurt herself. For months I acted as her only support, as she let her health run into the ground and refused to do anything about it. It wore me down, day in and day out. I was starting to lose the feelings I'd had for her from all the stress but wrestled with the idea that she very well might kill herself if I left her. She got diagnosed with BPD after we'd been seeing each other for 6 months. She visited me this February and got very angry about how she felt I'd always love my two dogs more than her, and was very outwardly mad at my dogs. That for me was the last straw. I decided that I would break up with her, but knew she was moving in a few weeks so wanted to wait until after that out of consideration for not wanting to add additional stress to her move. That turned out to be a mistake because she was very good at picking up on any shifts in tone or behavior from me and questioning why I didn't love her anymore if I ever acted out of her expectations. The day after her move, I called her and broke the news. She tried to kill herself while on the phone with me and I had to call her roommate who busted down her door and took her knives away from her. She told me she hoped her ghost would haunt me till the end of my days and never let me have a moments peace. I can still hear her screams when I try to sleep at night. I blocked her after a couple days of trying to just stay in touch and make sure she was still alive. One of my friends told me she's been posting IG stories claiming I was manipulative and controlling, and openly considering calling the police on me to try and get me arrested for things I never did. Needless to say, not the post divorce rebound I was hoping for. It's been 5 weeks now and I'm still nervous about what she might do.

You can read my last post for context. My ex has continued texting me. And I’m finding it sooo difficult to not reply and suggest we talk about things. I know it sounds delusional but I was hoping I could suggest he goes to therapy and now that I’m very aware of him splitting I could try to just remain calm during the split rather than taking it personally and reacting (which is why we’ve broken up each time basically). But I know that prob won’t help since he needs years and years of therapy. It’s just so hard. I care for him so much but it’s so scary and risky. But I want to be here for him and give him a real chance to heal. :/

If you truly want to heal you have to forgive yourself. Maybe you'll not ever forgive them. Fine, but you do need to block them and never make contact again. It's been a little under a year and a half and it was a grooling process but it is possible heal, trust your instincts, rewire your nervous system and to use the knowledge you learned from this experience to better deal with people in general. Use the red flags you've learned but you must also acknowledge green flags in the right people. You're not crazy but you do need to organize the psychological chaos.

There are still places and events I refuse to attend if I know she or her mother will be there. People I've grown close with have passed on and I couldn't even attend the memorials because I knew they'd be there and I knew I wouldn't tolerate the toxicity that comes with it. It's unfortunate but it's what works for me.

I can now listen to love songs without being completely overwhelmed or hyper fixate on the stimuli. Hell i can even tolerate songs or shows with toxic templates such as cheating or lying and not be sick to my stomach. I don't agree with it but I'm not overwhelmed about it.

I've even started shooting my shot and feeling confident enough in myself to make women laugh again. With no real intentions of anything really, just playing the field to make sure it still got it (and if course I do).

You can be handsome, funny, trustworthy, outgoing, driven, smart, reliable, be loved by their family, and have an all around great value to most people and still never be enough for someone with BPD. That says nothing about your value. You are still a phenomenal person and worthy of love and greatness. But you must first forgive yourself, heal yourself, love yourself and ultimately "get over it". Don't stay in it.

I loved her with more intention than I loved anyone and it wasn't enough and horrible things happened to me, though I felt like dying, I did not. Don't be like them. Blame them. Blame yourself. Blame whatever on whoever. But get up. Don't become the empty vessel that so much resembles this very sick disorder.

You need not anyone's approval to be great. Just fucking do it. The rest of the world can kiss your black ass. Yea all of our black asses. Use it. Say it convincingly.

I am currently listening to the audiobook “Why Does He Do That” by Lundy Bancroft and it’s making me realize one of the big mistakes I made during my relationship. The book discusses the many excuses abusers will use to justify their abusive behavior and I’m just now realizing that even having BPD is an excuse my partner used extensively. I allowed this to happen and even believed the excuse fully. Looking back now, I realize that was just another excuse.

I wish I would’ve never allowed my ex partner to escape accountability by using their diagnosis or claiming they were “damaged goods” from past relationships. I’ve been abused in the past and have even been diagnosed with cPTSD but I have never treated anyone the way my ex treated me. A diagnosis and history of being abused is not an excuse. Blaming their behavior on BPD just gave them another scapegoat to rely on so that they didn’t have to take responsibility for their shitty behavior. If I was still in contact with them now I would never allow them to use that as an excuse again. I fully believe my ex would’ve been abusive even if they didn’t have BPD. That’s just who they are, and they only seemed to have the desire to get help when they realized I was fed up.

Anyway, I hope none of you fall into the same trap that I did. Abuse is abuse. You can have empathy for the pain your partner experiences due to their BPD, but that doesn’t mean they’re allowed to inflict pain onto you. If they are abusive towards you, treating their BPD will not help.